Lenz v. Com.

• Decision Date: 20 April 2001
• Docket Number: Record No. 002779.
• Citation: 544 S.E.2d 299,261 Va. 451
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: Michael W. LENZ v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia.

544 S.E.2d 299

261 Va. 451

Michael W. LENZ v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia.

Record No. 002779.

Supreme Court of Virginia.

April 20, 2001.

John I. Hill (Gordon W. Poindexter, Jr.; Poindexter & Schorsch, on brief), Waynesboro, for appellant.

Pamela A. Rumpz, Assistant Attorney General (Mark L. Earley, Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.

Present: CARRICO, C.J., LACY, HASSELL, KEENAN, KOONTZ, and LEMONS, JJ., and COMPTON, Senior Justice.

HASSELL, Justice.

In this appeal, we review the capital murder conviction and sentence of death imposed upon Michael William Lenz.

I. Proceedings

The defendant was tried before a jury on an indictment charging him with the capital murder of Brent H. Parker in violation of Code § 18.2-31(3), "[t]he willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing of any person by a prisoner confined in a state or local correctional facility." At the time of Parker's death, the defendant and Parker were inmates at the Augusta Correctional Center. The jury found the defendant guilty of capital murder.

In the penalty phase of the capital murder trial, the jury fixed the defendant's punishment at death, finding that he represented a continuing serious threat to society and that his conduct in committing the offense was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or aggravated battery to the victim. See Code § 19.2-264.2. After considering a report prepared by a probation officer pursuant to Code § 19.2-264.5, the circuit court sentenced the defendant in accord with the jury's verdict.

II. The Evidence Adduced During Guilt Phase

Applying familiar principles of appellate review, we will recite the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the prevailing party in the circuit court, and we will accord the Commonwealth the benefit of all inferences fairly deducible from that evidence. Dowden v. Commonwealth, 260 Va. 459, 461, 536 S.E.2d 437, 438 (2000).

During the early evening of January 16, 2000, the defendant, Parker, Jeffrey Remington, and three other inmates attended a meeting of a group referred to as the Iron-wood Kindred. The meeting occurred in Building J-5, which is a part of the Augusta Correctional Center.

Earl Jones, a correctional officer, was assigned to Building J-5 that evening. Jones permitted the six inmates to enter a room where the meeting occurred. He closed the door, which contained windows, and "secured" the room.

As Jones sat down at his post outside the meeting room and began to "sort through" inmate passes that he had collected, he "noticed a commotion." Jones "got on" his radio and requested help from other correctional officers because he observed a fight. As Jones walked toward the room where the inmates were meeting, three of the inmates "ran out of the room," and one of the inmates said, "[t]hey're stabbing him."

Jones went to the door and saw "Remington and Lenz stabbing Parker." Parker was lying "on his back; on the floor, between Remington and Lenz." Parker "was making a feeble attempt to defend himself . . He had his hands up." As Parker tried to use his hands to "block" the knives from piercing his body, the defendant and Remington "took their free hand[s]; pushed [Parker's] hands aside and then stabbed him."

Jones opened the meeting room door and ordered the defendant and Remington to stop stabbing Parker. Jones testified, "[t]hey simply looked at me and went back to stabbing him." Jones used his radio again to request help and asked his fellow correctional officers to hurry because Remington and the defendant "were trying to kill this guy." Jones did not go into the room because Remington and the defendant had knives, and Jones was unarmed.

Edward V. Houching, a correctional officer, responded to Jones' request for assistance. When Houching arrived at the meeting room, he saw the defendant and Remington stab Parker between 10 to 15 times as Parker was lying on the floor in a fetal position. Like Jones, Houching ordered the defendant and Remington to stop, but they continued to stab Parker. Parker was not "doing anything to defend himself," and the defendant "was bent over, stabbing [Parker], over and over and over."

Within a few seconds after Houching arrived at the meeting room, two sergeants and correctional officer John Edward Simmons also responded. Simmons saw the defendant stab Parker six or seven times in an area that extended from Parker's "underarm" to his waist as Parker was lying on his side on the floor. Simmons also saw Remington stab Parker in the shoulder and back. After a sufficient number of correctional officers arrived at the meeting room, the officers, some of whom were armed with mace, entered the room, and Simmons told the defendant and Remington "to drop" their knives. The defendant placed his knife on a table, and Remington eventually surrendered his knife. The officers placed handcuffs on the defendant and Remington and escorted them from the area.

Rita K. Dietz, a registered nurse employed at the Augusta Correctional Center, rendered emergency assistance to Parker. When she walked into the meeting room to assist him, he was "very pale" and "surrounded by blood." As she approached him, she noticed that his shirt was soaked in blood. She ripped his shirt off. She testified that "[e]very time I encountered a couple of wounds, I encountered more wounds." She described Parker's medical condition as "[v]ery critical." She placed bandages on his wounds until she "ran out." She testified, "at that point, the stretcher had arrived. So we took the sheet off the stretcher ... Parker was still alive, and he helped roll onto the sheet. And we lifted the sheet up, which the one wound, out of the left side, just poured like water; like somebody had turned a faucet on, when we lifted him. And we got him on the stretcher." Parker was transported by ambulance to the Augusta Medical Center, where he died.

Gregory Price Wanger, the Assistant Chief Medical Examiner for the Western District of Virginia, performed an autopsy on Parker's body. Wanger testified that Parker had sustained 68 stab wounds and one cut wound, all of which were inflicted upon Parker when he was alive. Dr. Wanger explained that a stab wound is "shorter on the surface than it is deep" and "implies a thrusting motion[,]" whereas a cut wound "is longer on the surface than it is deep" and "implies a slashing-like motion." The stab wounds penetrated Parker's chest, abdomen, back, left arm, and right forearm.

Dr. Wanger identified 40 stab wounds, "from the upper part of [Parker's] chest down through the middle and center part of the chest, and into the abdomen." These wounds all contributed to his death. Parker's left lung and liver were stabbed seven times each and the wounds produced serious internal bleeding. The wounds to Parker's lungs would have been fatal without the other wounds. Additionally, "the wounds to the liver; by themselves, would have been fatal without the other wounds to [his] body."

III. Evidence Adduced During Penalty Phase

During the penalty phase of the trial, the Commonwealth presented evidence regarding the defendant's future dangerousness and the vileness of his crime. The Commonwealth introduced the defendant's prior convictions for possession of a firearm after being convicted of a felony and breaking and entering. The Commonwealth also relied upon evidence that it presented in the guilt phase of the trial.

The defendant offered evidence in mitigation of his offense. Martin Rogozinski, a psychologist employed at the Augusta Correctional Center, testified that he spoke with the defendant soon after Parker was murdered and that it was Rogozinski's opinion that the defendant had murdered Parker based "solely on a religious conviction."

The defendant testified during the penalty phase. He stated that he was a practicing member of the "Asatru" religion. According to the defendant, several inmates had approached him and asked him to "construct" an Asatru group, but his efforts to do so were "thwarted" by Parker.

The defendant testified that on the evening of the murder, he planned to perform an Asatru ceremony in the meeting room. The defendant recited poetic literature and then asked Parker to approach an altar. The defendant testified that "I called [Parker] up to the altar and I asked — and I said to him, `It's been a long, hard path between us.' And [Parker] said, `Yes, it is.' And I pulled the knife out of my pocket. And I said, `Are you trying to take it to the next step?' Arid he said, `Yes, I am.' And so I stabbed him." The defendant admitted that he did not like Parker, that he had planned to kill Parker that day, and that he had threatened others in the meeting room with the knife.

The defendant presented the testimony of Gary Lee Bass, the Chief of Operations at the Virginia Department of Corrections and Jerry Wayne Armentrout, the Assistant Warden of Operations at the Red Onion State Prison. Bass and Armentrout testified about "prison life" and the security conditions that the defendant would encounter at a Virginia maximum security correctional facility if he were sentenced to life imprisonment. Two officers assigned to the Augusta Correctional Center testified that the defendant had never given them any problems while he was under their supervision.

Patricia Daley Lenz, the defendant's mother, testified about his childhood and family interaction. She stated that the defendant's biological father was absent during much of the defendant's early childhood and that the defendant's adoptive father was very strict and favored his biological child.

IV. Assignments of Error Waived

The defendant filed 18 separate assignments of error, which he has reduced to 15 questions presented on appeal. However, the defendant failed to brief three of his assignments of error. Consequently, they are waived, and we will not consider them on appeal. Kasi v....